By Reggie Ugwu @ NYTimes.com, Oct. 24

Five teenagers in Michigan, accused of killing a man with a six-pound rock hurled from an overpass on a school night last week, were denied bond on Tuesday after being charged with second-degree murder.

The Genesee County Sheriff’s Office said Ken White, a 32-year-old father of four, was driving on Interstate 75 near Flint on Wednesday, headed home from a construction job, when a rock shattered his windshield and struck his chest and head, breaking his skull and clavicle. An autopsy ruled that his cause of death was blunt force trauma.

“It’s not a prank, it’s second-degree murder,” Sheriff Robert Pickell said at a news conference on Monday.

The Genesee County prosecutor, David Leyton, accused the teenagers of “a willful and wanton act that resulted in somebody’s death.” Mr. Leyton said they would be tried as adults [....]

GOP senators are getting closer to an immigration agreement that might pass muster with both Democrats and Donald Trump.

By Seung Min Kim @ Politico.com, Oct. 24

Key Senate Republicans have begun privately discussing the contours of an immigration plan to shield the hundreds of thousands of Dreamers who will lose work permits and deportation protections starting early next year.

Preliminary talks show that influential GOP senators are eager to devise a legislative fix for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals that could pass muster with both Democrats and President Donald Trump, who said [....]

In an interview, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) said the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, has convened a working group on immigration that includes himself and GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and James Lankford of Oklahoma, as well as other lawmake s. Sens. David Perdue of Georgia and Jeff Flake of Arizona also are among the Republicans who have been engaged in the talks, according to sources [.....]

By Adam Entous, Devlin Barrett and Rosalind S. Helderman @ WashingtonPost.com, October 24 at 6:21 PM

Just broke with a red banner, so changes in text may occur

The Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped fund research that resulted in a now-famous dossier containing allegations about Donald Trump’s connections to Russia and possible coordination between his campaign and the Kremlin, people familiar with the matter said.

Marc E. Elias, a lawyer representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, retained Fusion GPS, a Washington firm, to conduct the research.

Fusion GPS hired dossier author Christopher Steele [....]

Elias and his law firm, Perkins Coie, retained the firm in April 2016 on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Prior to that agreement, Fusion GPS’s research into Trump was funded by a still unknown Republican client during the GOP primary.

The Clinton campaign and the DNC through the law firm continued to fund Fusion GPS’s research through the end of October 2016, days before Election Day [...]

By Fred Barbash @ WashingtonPost.com, Oct. 24

Last fall and in the spring, the otherwise quiet campus of Eastern Michigan University was hit by three ugly incidents of vandalism targeting blacks that rocked the community [....]

On Tuesday, the university was shaken again when police announced that a 29-year-old black man, a former student, had been charged in all three crimes.

The suspect was identified as Eddie Curlin, a student at the school from 2014 to 2016, who is serving a one-to-five-year sentence on an unrelated charge of receiving and concealing stolen property, according to a university statement.

Curlin was arraigned in Washtenaw County District Court on charges of malicious destruction of property, identity theft and using computers to commit a crime. A preliminary hearing is set for Nov. 9 [....]

Political liberation hasn’t yet meant material gains for blacks. As one woman said, “I’ve gone from a shack to a shack.”

By Peter S. Goodman from Crossroads, South Africa for NYTimes.com, Oct. 24

[....] This reality is palpable as turmoil now seizes South Africa. Enraged protesters demand the ouster of President Jacob Zuma over disclosures of corruption so high-level that it is often described as state capture, with private interests having effectively purchased the power to divert state resources in their direction. The economy keels in recession, worsening an official unemployment rate reaching nearly 28 percent.

Underlying the anger are deep-seated disparities in wealth. In the aftermath of apartheid, the government left land and other assets largely in the hands of a predominantly white elite. The government’s resistance to large-scale land transfers reflected its reluctance to rattle international investors.

Today, millions of black South Africans are chronically short of capital needed to start businesses. Less than half of the working age population is officially employed.

The governing party, the African National Congress, built empires of new housing for black South Africans, but concentrated it in the townships, reinforcing the geographic strictures of apartheid [....]

By John Soloman and Alison Spann @ TheHill,com, Oct. 22

As Hillary Clinton was beginning her job as President Obama’s chief diplomat, federal agents observed as multiple arms of Vladimir Putin’s machine unleashed an influence campaign designed to win access to the new secretary of State, her husband Bill Clinton and members of their inner circle, according to interviews and once-sealed FBI records.

Some of the activities FBI agents gathered evidence about in 2009 and 2010 were covert and illegal.

A female Russian spy posing as an American accountant, for instance, used a false identity to burrow her way into the employ of a major Democratic donor in hopes of gaining intelligence on Hillary Clinton’s department, records show [....]

Traders, prepare to adapt.

Wall Street is entering a new era. The fraternity of bond jockeys, derivatives mavens and stock pickers who've long personified the industry are giving way to algorithms, and soon, artificial intelligence.

Banks and investment funds have been tinkering for years, prompting anxiety for employees. Now, firms are rolling out machine-learning software to suggest bets, set prices and craft hedges. The tools will relieve staff of routine tasks and offer an edge to those who stay. But one day, machines may not need much help. It's no wonder most of the jobs Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s securities business posted online in recent months were for tech talent. Billionaire trader Steven Cohen is experimenting with automating his top money managers. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen has said 100,000 financial workers aren’t needed to keep money flowing.

This map of trading automation is based on interviews with about a dozen senior banking and investing executives on Wall Street [....]

By Hayley Britsky @ Axios.com, 3 hrs. ago

Sen. John McCain tweeted out a New York Times story Sunday morning, in which he was labeled the "unfettered voice against Trumpism." [....]